The object of my affection: a pristine Madame Grès from 1971. (Photo courtesy of Sothebys.com.)

Though the auction included garments dating back to the 1920s, I had fallen in love with a floor-length gown made by Madame Grès in 1971.Trained as a sculptor, Grès was best known for expertly draped and meticulously pleated Grecian gowns that showcased her love of classical sculpture.The gown I coveted was one of them.

A withering perfectionist, Grès was a designer I could relate to for multiple reasons. Independent, feisty and largely self-taught, Grès was an unapologetic workaholic who draped and sewed her dresses on live models instead of creating patterns or using dress forms, a technique that both flattered women’s bodies and produced formalwear with the comfort of a nightgown.Deceptively simple, her gowns often took as many as 300 hours to create because they were made of a single piece—or at most two pieces—of fabric and made entirely by hand (including the micropleats, which measured exactly 1 cm each).I think of her often as I enter my ninth month hand-beading a 1920s cocktail dress that is only 20% complete.

Designer Madame Grès (née Alix Barton) in her atelier at the beginning and end of her career. (Photo courtesy of Picture-Alliance: Boris Lipnitzi/Roger Viollet.)

Though she dressed the likes of the Duchess of Windsor, Marlene Dietrich and Grace Kelly, Grès rejected celebrity and designed for the sake of creating beauty instead of seeking fame.She frequently refused to dress women she didn’t respect, no matter how much publicity they might offer her brand. Consequently, although she worked into her seventies, her label was not prolific and few of her gowns exist today outside museums.That the Ludot auction should contain four of them was nothing short of miraculous.I reasoned that the other three gowns, which dated from the 1930s, would undoubtedly fetch astronomical sums and hoped against hope that the one I wanted might slip under the radar since it was a more recent creation.I began to question my logic when Lot 8, a Dior suit almost twenty years younger than the 1971 Grès, sold for 28,000 euros, over 15 times its estimated value. Only moments earlier Lot 6, a plain black Balenciaga suit, sold for quadruple its estimated price to no less than the Louvre’s famed Musée des Arts Decoratifs.So much for the theory that museums might not get funds released in time to bid. Was there any chance bidders might suffer fatigue (as it appeared doubtful they would run out of money) by Lot 119, “my” Grès?

Lots 6 and 8: the Balenciaga and Dior suits that sold for 18,000 and 28,000 euros, respectively. (Photo courtesy of Sothebys.com.)

There were several glimmers of hope: a technical glitch saw internet participants bidding on one lot while on-site and telephone hopefuls bid on another, the result of which was that both items sold for well below their expected prices.A Chanel hat with a single towering feather the size of a gladiolus stem was left unsold, and even the third Madame Grès only grazed the low end of its estimated price.Trust me when I say I exercised extreme restraint by passing on these opportunities—which were within my financial comfort—because buying one of them would have left money too little money to take my “baby” home. When Lot 119 went on the block I broke out in a cold sweat. I registered my interest with an early bid, which was quickly overtaken by two more from opposite sides of the packed room.I raised again and was overtaken by one of the same bidders; I raised again.By then the auctioneer knew she had hooked us both and, like a beautiful ingénue with two suitors, played us off each other. “I wonder,” said the auctioneer in French, “who will it belong to?” With that, my competition outbid me once more. For what seemed like ten minutes (but was actually more like 30 seconds), a tennis match ensued with the auctioneer’s chin bouncing back and forth from me to my rival, each of us raising the other until it became clear that unlike me, my competitor had no budget.Whatever I bid, she would simply bid more.As much as I longed to own the gown (and let’s face it, to beat her), I was only a few bids away from risking a sum that could sink me if she conceded.The next time the auctioneer’s chin bounced my way, I refused.The look of surprise on the auctioneer’s face reminded me of a woman whose date excuses himself and ditches her with the dinner tab. I swore the words, “Going once, going twice…” were said in slow motion just to prolong my agony, but by the time the gavel struck I knew my “baby” was gone. When the final lot was sold, Didier Ludot’s collection of 171 pieces fetched nearly 1 million euros, over 100,000 of which was spent by a single bidder buying clothes for his new fiancée.(Barf.)A British bride-to-be purchased a Lesage-embroidered Balmain to wear to her mountaintop wedding for a cool 18,750 euros. (I hate her.)But the most staggering purchase was a 1965 angel pink Balenciaga smothered with ostrich feathers.It belonged to Francine Weisweiller, a Paris socialite and personal friend of Jean Cocteau, and sold for over 56,000 euros.Proof that the auction of a lifetime includes prices to match, and that—even at Sotheby’s—auctions are more of a blood sport than their elegant veneers suggest.To their credit, however, the audiences still clap at a particularly impressive score. Just like they did at the Coliseum in Rome…

The day's highest bid went to this 1965 Balenciaga dress owned by Francine Weisweiller, which sold for over 56,000 euros. (Photo courtesy of Sothebys.com.)

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The Little Black Book thoughts about life, luxury and the pursuit of vintage fashion.

The author

Claudine Villardito is a vintage fashion historian, collector, conservator and cat whisperer living in Phoenix, Arizona. Her archive of over 3,000 fully restored vintage items from the 1850s to the early 2000s is sold online at blackcatvintage.com.

She began this blog because she got sick of people commenting that she should really write a book.